A Valley Called Death

By Daniel Mkiwa

The sweat on the side of his face rubbed slick on the hot leather of the car's seat. But it was the pounding in his head like a hundred hangovers that Gordon "Sticks" DeLuca noticed first.

He grimaced and massaged his temples as he sat up.

Disoriented in the backseat of his car, he had no recollection of how he'd gotten there.

The brightness of the day forced his eyes half-closed. The heat was persistent and oppressive.

It had to be over a hundred degrees. He opened his eyes to see the sand and chaparral outside the open windows of his car. The desert. He was sitting in the backseat of his own car in the middle of the desert.